Ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president. If Trump pressed State to dismiss the woman ambassador to the Ukraine, he was merely being polite.
RSS- Supreme Court oral arguments to be heard on April 25 about presidential immunity for official acts
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In a place close to the Ukraine, aka Russia, POTUS Trump has nominated Pompeo deputy, John Sullivan to be U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
Marie Yovanovitch was a career ambassador nominated to the post in 2016. She seems to have promoted the U.S. position faithfully in regard to Ukraine regardless of whether one agrees with that position. It is interesting the Department of State did not register disapproval of her dismissal from what little one can obtain from mainstream media.
Was she a victim in the ongoing battle of the oligarchs ? I wonder about the condition of our dedicated corps of career professionals and have the unsubstantiated feeling alternative channels ( other agencies )are now the prime use of presidents in pursuit of their agendas.
There is probably a great deal of professional dead wood that should be cleared out of the State Department.
True enough – and at some level, Presidents serve at the pleasure of Congress.
Peterhug
That is not true. This is not a parliamentary system of government. A judgment of malfeasance by both houses is required to remove a president or anyone else from office.
Inquiring Mind
“the Department of State did not register disapproval of her dismissal” How would they do that? Hold a press conference and denounce the president? They are altogether the president’s subordinates.
I remember when JFK appointed Chester Bowles Ambassador to India. JFK wanted to remove Chet from DC because Chet was the only one who advised him NOT to invade Cuba.
The President does not have to say why he appoints or removes any ambassador, it is the President’s job.
Should have mentioned that the Senate must confirm appointments of ambassadors.
odman22
Yes, but the president can fire them at will for anything or nothing. Because Yovanovich is a civil servant she could be removed from the position but not from her employment without a “due process.”
From what I have read, Yovanovitch was publicly disrespectful of the President. I have also read that she in some way blocked certain Ukraine officials from obtaining US visas. The article further stated that in 2016 she presented the Ukraine government with a “do not prosecute” list. Of Canadian origin; a reliable Obama/Biden firewall?
at most she is merely punctuation in a long sentence, of no more importance than a missing comma which renders the reading mildly awkward but the meaning unchanged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Yovanovitch
i also suspect ‘ambassador’ was her day job, not who she worked for.
Here’s an interesting article from far-left journalist Matt Taibbi.
The first impeachment was over this exact issue. The Republicans argued that if “advise and consent” was needed to appoint, it was also needed to remove. In the Senate trial, Johnson’s managers made the point that Stanton had been appointed during Lincoln’s first term and thus was a “holdover” not subject to the tenure of office, though I think the Senate vote was more a political statement than a legal reading of the removal power of the President.
Of Canadian origin; a reliable Obama/Biden firewall?
Born in Canada-moved to US when she was 3.
Both parents were from Ukraine .
JSoban
i don’t see what makes Matt Taibbi a “far left” person. Is it that he is of Palestinian ancestry?
Wasn’t JFK’s father Joe made ambassador to England because FDR wanted him out of the way and out of the USA?
I was about to say, “Ah ha! a Banderite!” however a quick glance at her Wikipedia entry says her parents were Russian-Serbian and that she “She grew up speaking Russian.” Perhaps it’s not so simple.”
Remember all of the State Department “unmaskings” that were taking place? Hundreds of unmaskings assigned to U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, and yet no-one could identify who was doing them?
“One of the significant changes between the Collyer report (covering 2016) and the Boasberg report (covering 2017) was an institutional inability to track who was doing the actual database searches. Some internal process was modified to create IC anonymity.
Well, against the backdrop of Ambassador Yovanovitch in 2017 and 2018 “monitoring” American persons in/around her Ukraine interests; and considering all of these database search queries identified by Boasberg in 2017 and 2018 “incidentally” captured Americans; perhaps this explains how the Yovanovitch “monitoring” was taking place.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/10/12/fisa-judges-collyer-and-boasberg-both-identified-nsa-databases-used-for-political-surveillance/#more-173475
way out of my league in regards to Yovanovitch. I suspect FISA was being routinely abuse and still is.
One more Obama drama queen we are far better off without.
Soban’s “far left” opinion hmm…so it goes. For me Matt Taibbi and his dad wear 12s
Attempting to close out the italics. Did it work? In any case I strongly second the recommendation of JSoban’s link.
I also agree that Taibbi is not far left. I would put him in the same bin as myself, a social democrat. This is what the Democratic Party used to be for the six decades before Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council crowd sold it to the financial sector. That a relatively well-informed person can regard Taibbi & the ideas of social democracy as “far left” indicates how far out of whack the Overton Window has been moved rightward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Yovanovitch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Closing the italics gate
This is probably a naive question coming from someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the inner dealings in DC and who gets her information from television news and from the Internet: how many of Obama’s appointees were also approved by George Soros? Or is George Soros, the Bilderberger Society less of the threat than we out here in the Middle think they are based on what we find in emails and Internet political sites?
Beaver,
“born in Cananda is rather irrelevant. The idea she is another Sally Yates out to steer the foreign policy of the US back to the course the left wants is not surprising though. I’m sure she’ll have a nice university or foundation sinecure to tide her over in her dotterage.
Terence,
All this ongoing fisa abuse implies the left has been spying on Rudy Guliani for a couple of years via various foreign nationals like the two just indicted.
Ted,
every comment is moderated, you don’t need to keep posting it.
I base the far-left description of him on having read his stuff in The Nation and Rolling Stone and his regular appearances on Democracy Now! and MSNBC. I don’t think far-left is a pejorative and is meant to separate him from the univocally lying mainstream liberal left. I have a lot of respect for those outside of this current liberal political cult. In addition to Taibbi I have respect for: Aaron Mate, Tulsi Gabbard, Max Blumenthal, Stephen Cohen, Michael Tracey, et al.).
I guess we’re finally living the dictum “Live your live like someone is watching you’
Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint the true nationality or origin of the people from Mittel Europa.
Even the term Mittel Europa is subject to disagreement or discussion depending on one’s ethnicity in that region or whether one can trace back where his ancestors have migrated from.
She has as much Canadian origin as Ted Cruz 🙂
Thanks for the gentle reminder. Age is not kind to some people. Your clarity of response to oldman22 regarding due process as a civil servant is what I was thinking about.
Terence,
It took a liberal democrat to make that a reality.
Diana C – interesting question regarding Soros. As I clearly recall, following a Bilderberg meeting in Chantilly, VA, Obama was whisked away in a private jet w/Soros on board leaving Hillary behind. Many then suggested Obama was the chosen one so to speak.
I also recall Obama appointing his top bundlers and donors to serve in Ambassadorships rather than promoting from the diplomatic corp.
Lastly, this Ukrainian NABU/Stynik anti-corruption agency and the U.S. Embassy ties needs to be investigated thoroughly. It is my understanding Mr. Soros’ anti-corruption NGO in Ukraine was behind Biden’s urging for Petroshenko to establish Ukraine’s anti-corruption unit aka NABU. It is also my understanding that an employee or more from Soros’ NGO staffed the NABU. This detail can be found in Shokin’s affidavit, if my memory serves correctly.
Why has there been no mention by any U.S. corporate media of Shokin’s affidavit which states clearly he was investigating Soros and his NGO? Biden apparently made certain both Burisma and the Soros investigation were shut down.
So, I’m thinking Diana C, the White House and State Department likely became Soros’ private fiefdom.
Interesting report from JW:
“JW INVESTIGATES IF OUSTED UKRAINE AMBASSADOR ORDERED STATE DEPT. TO MONITOR JOURNALISTS, TRUMP ALLIES”
See also sundance’s reprint, with comments of the JW announcement.
Thank you for your response to my question. I am late getting back to your very helpful answer.
Whenever there is a discussion that includes actions by the State–The Secretary of State and all–I become nervous. I like feeling that I am a citizen of the United States, not a citizen of some nebulous, nefarious international group of extremely wealthy and possibly evil people.
I am not saying your reply eased my mind about that, but did make me feel more inclined always to trust my heart and my gut reactions.